Playing The Game
by Ashnan
Summary: The game must be played. - You're not getting more of a summary than that or it would give it all away.


**Title**: Playing the Game  
**Author**: Ashnan Etana (actually her husband)  
**Summary**: The game must be played.  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own them. Sue if you want, but all you'll get is an empty McDonald's bag and about a dollar in change.  
**Rating**: K (darn them for confusing me with the ratings change)  
**Archive**: I would be thrilled if anyone wanted to archive any of my work. Take it. Just let me know where I can find it.  
**Feedback**: Yes, please. It always helps to know what others think, even if it's bad. But be supportive; don't flame just to be cruel.  
**Author's Note**: I did not write this, my husband did. He doesn't have an account, so I'm posting it for him.

* * *

He is weary. So many years, so many battles, countless lives, lost or changed forever. The whole world shaped in their image. Was it right? Funny he should think that now after coming all this way. The end was near. He could feel it. The sides had been chosen. Those who were undecided are now mostly all dead. Not much longer and the final battle would begin. He knew he faced one of two fates, victory or death. He was losing the taste for both. He needed strength. He needs reassurance. After acting for so long without second guessing himself, now he was.

He looked at the chess board in his office. The epic battle represented on it. Both sides one move from checkmate. The only question that mattered now was who's turn? He filled his mind with the image of the board. It filled every empty space of his head. No room for anything else. Once it filled him to the point of overflowing, he reach for the helmet. The knight's armor had remained on his head for decades, but now, if only for a little while he didn't want to be the tireless warrior. He needed reassurance, he needed his brother so badly he would risk it all, right here, right now.

As soon as the helmet cleared his head, he felt the pressance of another in his head, gently pushing out the image of the chess board. His brother was with him and was amused at the image.

_Who's turn old friend?_

_I need you. I need you to remind me. I need your conviction._

His mind filled with images of the past.

* * *

1949

He was free of the camps. He had lost everything, but that was the past, it was time to look ahead. He was a free man in a country that he felt at home in. Israel was filled with hope and it filled him. It was time for the whole world to learn from the past and heal itself. The cancer was destroyed and now the world was healthy again.

He enrolled in university. He absorbed knowledge like a sponge. Deep inside he knew he was different, even here in a land for he and his countrymen, but it didn't matter. He pushed it aside, but a part of him knew it couldn't be ignored forever.

They met in his favorite class, games and theory. A class about strategy, about how to win, about how to beat the odds, about how to change the odds. Yes, this was the perfect class for him. For so long he had wished to beat the odds. Even now that the skill was not needed, he longed for the ability.

While following the lecture, he suddenly became aware of the other. Was he in his head? The question had not fully formed when the answer came to him.

_Hello, my friend. I know what you are._

Fear. Exposore. Run.

_Be calm. _(and he was)_ I am a friend. Another, like you. Meet me at The Shop _(a hang out for students, an extended place of learning outside of school)_ after your classes._

_Who are you? Where are you? What the hell is happening? _

_Be clam _(and he was)_ All will be revealed._

After, his classes he hurried to The Shop. He was intrigued to find out who this disembodied presence had been and to find out if he could learn more about what he himself was.

As soon as he entered the presence returned.

_Over here, in the back._

He looked to the back and saw a small man sitting in the back of the room behind a chess board, beckoning to him. The man looked so small and unassuming. Nothing like what Eric had felt like in his head. The small man looked meek, almost feeble. But in Eric's head he had felt strong, powerful. More powerful than any of the most fearsome guards he had known in his other life, but unlike the guards this man's power inspired. It drew him in.

As Eric approached, the small man held out his hand. "I would stand, but...", He motioned to the wheel chair in which he sat. "I am Charles, nice to meet you Eric."

Eric was silent.

_Sorry, about that I usually let people tell me their name, but I didn't see the point with you. You know what I am._

"Please sit. I am very pleased to have found you here. Do you play?" He motioned to the chess broad.

"No. I know the basics, butWhat is this all..."

_Please, sit and play. _(And he did)

He and Charles talked and played for hours that first night. With their voices they talked about chess and school and everything acceptable to the setting, but in Eric's head they talked about what they were, or about what they might be. Charles didn't have many more answers than Eric, but they explored the subject in great detail anyway.

Neither wanted the night to end. They had been alone and afraid for so long. Now they knew of another.

For the next year they spent every free second together exploring. The whole time playing chess, talking about current events and anything else that came to mind. During class Charles would connect them, and they would take two classes at the same time. Learning twice as mush as their peers. Knowledge flowed into them and filled their minds and souls.

Then the world coughed. Just a small one, but it showed that the world was not completely healed after all. For a week Israel was abuzz with a story about a former US soldier who had went mad in New York and killed twenty people. Not an overly remarkable story, except that he did it by pushing over a building with his bare hands while two policeman were empting their service revolvers into him. He didn't die. Once he calmed down he went with the officers quietly. Nothing else was known about him.

But Eric and Charles knew. They knew what he was, and they feared that others did too. Something about how the story just went away spoke volumes. No one else seemed to notice, but Charles and Eric did. And they didn't like the way it felt.

The Shop was their domain. The atmosphere was alive with discussions of all sorts. The kind of thoughts that only students voiced. How, and what if, and why. Eric and Charles soaked it all in. Occasionally, talk would turn to people who were different. Eric and Charles paid close attention to these talks. They usually didn't join in, but Charles would share the thoughts of the participants with Eric as they talked.

Chess was played during all this. Eric and Charles were well matched. Charles would never cheat. Both their games were world class. Chess was the reason they created their first computer in their forth year. They applied everything they had learned in class and everything Charles could get from the Engineering students minds. Eric made components that the current technology could only dream of but not make. The computer played chess as well as they did. Only it didn't get tired. It could play 24 hours a day. It got better and better. Soon they took it further. They started to use the computer to predict the outcome of sporting events and political elections. The computer was amazingly accurate.

Once they realized the power of the machine they had created, they set it to work predicting they had become what they were. Mutations. And they were not the only ones and more and more would be coming.

Where would it all lead? According to the computer, nowhere good. The possibilities were too many to get a clear answer. The computer played out millions of scenarios. Eric and Charles poured over the data and realized the sad truth. The word was only in remission, and the brunt of the disease was still to come. The coming sickness could easiliy end it all. They had to find a way to stop it.

They started "what if"ing. The computer would analyze and predict the outcomes. The best outcomes, as it turned out, were when the world was united, or clearly divided. Any splinter factions and the whole thing turned into a mess, but how could they unit the world against the natural response of fear?

The day came. They were nearing their graduate degrees. The time for learning was over; the time for doing or dying was at hand. Eric found Charles sitting in The Shop, sitting in the place he had been that first day. He looked sick. When Eric sat, Charles look into his eyes and Eric's mind filled with the answer. The chess board. Two polar opposites. No room for fence sitters. Two sides. Black and White. Eric understood.

_I can do it._

_No I can't ask that of you. You know what you will become._

_That's why it must be me. I have seen evil. I have lived it. I know it. I can be it._

Charles consented, but Eric felt his sadness. His mourning. His wishing there was another way, but the world had to be healed and only they knew how. They were both willing to die to do it, but they had to be willing to do more than that. They had to be willing to kill the only true family they had known. Their brother.

The next day Charles presented the idea of Eric's Helmet. Eric was shocked.

"But you have never used your advantage."

"You know what is coming and nethier of us can hold back. It's all or nothing"

They made it, and spent the rest of their time enjoying what was left of their time together.

No chess. No computer. Just Eric and Charles as brothers.

After graduation, Eric donned his helmet and got to work. Charles did the same. And never had brotherly contact again. Cain and Able.

* * *

Present

Now, here they were, two Messiahs. Preparing to unit the world behind one goal, curing itself once and for all. Sides must be chosen for there to finally be peace on earth.

_Feeling better my friend?_

_Yes._

_Now get to work! _(And he did)


End file.
